Having the ability to use substantially identical control and power electronics for both air and liquid-cooled electric machines is highly desirable. Even though a given stator and rotor pair for an electric machine may be used in both types of cooling applications, the electronics cannot be shared due to the physical layout dictated by the cooling media. To be able to accommodate both types of cooling applications is desirable since one of the major cost drivers for the control and power electronics of an electric machine is the investment necessary to produce the various electronics assemblies and components. This includes investment costs for customized components such as integrated circuits and circuit board layouts for the control electronics and heat sinks for the power devices.
Previously, there have always been separate, custom designed electronics for both air-cooled and liquid-cooled electric machines. Current state-of-the-art designs in this area preclude communization between the two modes of cooling media. The electrical and mechanical designs used for the two types of cooling require physically different configurations and layouts and the current art does not teach how to span between the two with common electronics. Consequently the investment cost to fabricate and manufacture for these two types of cooling systems has typically been duplicated, one for air-cooled and one for liquid-cooled and thereby effectively doubling the overall investment.